Tag: Central Park

In New York City’s Central Park, just below the 79th St. Traverse, lies a heavily wooded area, interwoven with narrow, winding trails, and dotted with large granite boulders. While The Ramble, as it’s known, may appear to be the most natural place in the city it only looks that way thanks to the efforts of Central Park’s planners Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, as well as the original builders of the Park who put in countless hours constructing a landscape that would seem rustic and remote. But for all their hard work, Central Park has changed. Like everything else in New York City the Park is constantly evolving, but if you know just where to look you can still find traces of its original features. One of the more interesting cases is that of the long-lost Ramble Cave.

Greetings, folks! I just put a pair of new episodes up over on the Bookworm History YouTube channel. The first is called “Water for New York City” and is all about New York’s early attempts at creating a sustainable water source. What do street gangs, fatal duels, and pastoral parks have to do with New York’s water supply? Click the title card below to find out!

Next, I decided to do some searching outside of the library and set out to find any remaining pieces of the Old Croton reservoirs in Manhattan. It’s a little different from my normal programming, but I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve been working on these projects for over a month now and it’s been a lot of fun and a lot of work. Check them out, let me know what you think, and, as always, thanks for stopping by!